Bob's Red Mill

I just thought this was a neat story.

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-02-22-organic-grain-miller-goes-employee-owned/

March pics

I love to take pictures of the animals but they don't always want to to cooperate with me.

For example, these baby pigs were laying beside their mom (that's her ear you can barely see to the right) sunning themselves. I was being very quiet so I could creep up on them & get a photo. But they heard me or rather they heard Bandit (you'll see his picture below) and they all got up. Oh well.....

Here are some of our laying hens.





Another picture of the hens

This is Lakota.

She is one of the Border Collies on the farm. She has been working at a dairy farm for the past year but she is back home with us now. She has really enjoyed being back home & seeing all the new animals.

Pigs

Pigs

I am always asked if we have turkeys at Wild turkey Farms. The answer is yes. These are our "barn turkeys." We do raise turkey for Thanksgiving but we do not have them for sell year-round.

Turkey

Chicken

This is my buddy Bandit. He is the father to my Border Collie, Freckles. We rescued Bandit before we were even married so we have had him for at least 9 years. He loves to run around at the farm but he is definitely not a working dog, he's just my buddy. I can never get a picture of Bandit because every time I try to take his picture he is in my face giving me kisses. So the only way to get his picture was to be in the picture with him.

What A Week-end!!

What a busy week-end we had at Wild Turkey Farms!!

On Saturday, we had the Davidson Tailgate Market. I appreciate all who came out. I was so busy I had to recruit some help (Thanks Patti!). I met a lot of new people at the Market. It's great to have new people come out.

Just to remind everyone of a few dates.

On March 27, 2010, we will have our second Charcuterie Class with Chef Charles. If you were at the Market I hope you took a few minutes to look at the photo books (we have one & Chef Charles).

We have a few spots left but they are filling up fast....so hurry!

May 15, 2010, will be our first Open House, Farm Tour & Pig Pickin' at the Farm. We participated in 2 farm tours last year & have done countless tours on our own but this is our first official Open House. We hope that you'll support us on this.

More details to come.

If you are interested in volunteering let me know!!

While I was at the DFM Lee was at a farm auction. He got a lot of good deals. He bought a trailer frame, lumber, pig feeders, an auger & probably a few more things that I don't know about;-) The plan for the trailer is to build another movable chicken coop. That should keep everyone happy! More chickens mean more eggs!

And speaking of eggs.....I actually went home with a couple of dozen on Saturday. I always sell out. That's alright though I made Lee & the boys homemade banana bread so they were all glad I had eggs leftover!

By the time Lee got home from the auction with all his goodies it was 7 o'clock so we did not do anything more than we had to at the farm. But Sunday afternoon it was such a nice day so we unloaded all the goodies from the auction and did several other tasks.

I had my camera so I went around and took some pictures (Stayed tuned....I will post tomorrow or if you can't wait they are on FB).

Wild Turkey Farms Newsletter- March 4, 2010

Wild Turkey Farms News- March 4, 2010

Guess what we had this week.....more snow yeahhhhhh. Enough of all this white stuff I'm ready for all of our pastures to be lush & green. Actually I guess the snow was a good thing and will help get us to that goal. We've spent the last 2 weekends reseeding pastures and the snow will be good for helping to get that grass & clover off to a great start especially if we can get some nice weather for the next week or 2. I sure am ready for spring to get here. We plan to get in the greenhouse this weekend & get some plants started for this summer- better late than never a guess.

As I mentioned in our last newsletter, we held our first ever charcuterie class with Chef Charles Catering on Feb 13 & we had a great time. Our good friend Sara Pitzer wrote a wonderful article that ran in the Salisbury Post last week. Thanks Sara.

Our next Charcuterie class is going to be held on Saturday March 27 10am- 3pm at Chef Charles Catering in Charlotte. The cost is $120 per person and includes a wonderful gourmet lunch and participants get a share of everything they make during the workshop. Come by our booth at the Davidson Farmers Market & check out the pictures from Feb 13. Class size is limited so sign up quickly by emailing us at wildturkey_farms@yahoo.com

Save the date: We're planning an afternoon open house, farm tour, and pig pick-in for Saturday May 15. Tickets will go on sale soon so stay tuned for more details.


Find us at Davidson Farmers Market Winter Tailgate this Saturday March 6 and Saturday March 20 9am-noon. Don't forget to get there early for eggs.

This week's specials:

Sausage stock up special- mix and match to make the most of your savings
buy 5 lbs & save 5%
buy 10lbs & save 10%
buy 15lbs & save 15%
buy 20lbs & save 20%
Ham Steaks & Ham Roast 10% off through this weekend.
Feel like firing up the grill to make some BBQ? Pork picnic roast & whole pork shoulders are on sale for just $3.75/lb


Are you out of our area or not able to make it to the market? No need to settle for lesser quality or starve your inner carnivore- Start a buying club in your neighborhood, at work, or at church. We'll send you a list of products, you get friends or coworkers to sign up, and we'll deliver- what could be easier? The bigger the order the more you save for coordinating the effort. No place is too far. Email us for details.


Don't forget to visit us at our blog and on facebook

Thanks for your support & we'll see you at the market.

Lee, Domisty, Rosty, & Charlie Menius
Wild Turkey Farms
China Grove NC

Charcuterie pics....Kry-o-vac machine

When I am freezing vegetables, fruit or meats at home I have a small vacuum seal machine. We buys rolls of plastic, cut to desired size, seal one end, put our vegetable, etc in the bag and seal the top of the bag. It sounds easy enough but you have to make sure there is no moisture on the seal of the bag, make sure everything fits in the bag (chicken wings).....it can be a pain.

So when I saw the kry-o-vac machine that Chef Charles has I fell in love.

Chef Charles giving instructions on bagging the meat.

Yummy porkchops!

Charcuterie Pics.....Making Sausages

I know it seems like I am dragging this out with the Charcuterie pics...... We took about 140 pictures. Don't worry I'm not going to post then all. Instead of getting bored looking at all the pictures I just thought I would post certain parts of the class. These pictures include stuffing the sausage.

The tray below contains casings that were made ahead of time. The sausage was placed in the stuffing machine (I'm sure it has a more sophisticated name than that) & then into the casings they go.

Check out the Salisbury Post story

Check out the story about our Charcuterie workshop that was printed in the Salisbury Post.

http://www.salisburypost.com/Lifestyle/022410-Charcuterie